Saturday, 24 October 2009

Autumn Quilt Festival at Malvern - next weekend

What's new?

Today, I've been cutting fabric for kits for the Autumn Quilt Festival at Malvern next weekend. As well as the popular "Plum and Moon" and "Tai" bag kits, the sashiko book bag kit and my Sashiko & Tsumugi cushion panel kit, I've decided to pack some more of the Shonai Sashiko cushion panel. The arrival of new colourways in the tsumugi fabrics has been great, as I've now got some wonderful stripes - plenty of colourful combinations - but the ones with pinks and purples are some of my favourites so far. I've decided to produce a special version of "Plum and Moon" on stripe and also on Euro Japan Link's lovely burgundy tsumugi, just for a bit of variety. I am also recolouring the maple leaf coaster kits towards more Autumnal colours (I couldn't re-order the green fabric in the original version, and the red/rust/ochre/brown colours show off the shaded sashiko threads better than the green anyway).

As well as the kits, I am launching a new idea - my "Make it Again" packs. Because the cushion kits have several different sashiko designs in the same kit and I know that quite a few quilters have wanted to stitch them again, these thread and fabric packs will contain everything needed to stitch another cushion (or book bag kit), just minus the instructions. Hopefully it will also make slightly less work for me cutting fabrics on the demo stand, so I can spend more time demoing.

I am also going to launch this pattern (fingers crossed!), "Tennyo" ( Celestial Maiden), a sashiko design based on this antique uchishiki. I am planning to be stitching the design at the show, on my hand dyed Osnaburg fabric.